pages

Saturday, July 21, 2012

win "wild about greens" :: contest and recipe

I decanted the dressing to a recycled salad dressing bottle and made the tag in an extremely rare, Martha-Stewart-esque moment.

Nava Atlasis certainly one of the most prolific, plantalicious cookbook authors I know. And she's also one of the most gracious people in the vegan community – always there to give an encouraging word to aspiring herbivores, plug other cookbooks, and share her infectious positivity. Oh, and she's a visual artist and also writes non-fiction books, too. [Clearly this woman does not sleep!] Nava's newest cookbook, Wild About Greens, focuses, as you hopefully have deduced from the title, on recipes made with kale, spinach, chard, and the like. Gorgeous photos were shot by the lovely and popular blogger Susan Voisin.I think this is a simple yet brilliant book concept. I don't know about you, but I am so over the "vegan series" of cookbooks: vegan this, vegan that, and vegan the other [and I am allowed to say this because I wrote The Urban Vegan
and Celebrate Vegan]. Using the word "vegan" in a cookbook title is definitely a trend that's past its prime. I love how Nava has chosen to focus on an impossibly broad-yet-narrow area of cuisine. And Nava's 125 recipes give you plenty of inspiration and cover the spectrum from salads to smoothies, and just about everything in between.

Wild About Greens contains 8, count 'em 8 recipes for Massaged Kale Salads. I made the Kale Salad with Dried Fruits and Nuts.

Contest:

Nava's publisher is giving away a copy to one lucky winner [US residents only, please]. I'll announce the winner sometime next week. All you have to do is tell me your favorite green veggie in a comment. To gain additional chances to win, do any or all of the following:

Recipe: Green Goddess DressingAs if the book giveaway is not cool enough, Nava has kindly allowed me to reprint her Green Goddess Salad Dressing Recipe. I whipped up a batch this afternoon – it's light and the perfect dressing for summer salads. It looks like pesto, and that made me think it would taste great as a pasta sauce or even atop a baked potato. I'll definitely be making this again...

Place all ingredients in the container of a food processor. Process until all that remains of the parsley is tiny flakes. Refrigerate the unused portion in an airtight container. Use within two days. [Besides using this as a salad topper, Nava also suggests drizzling it on lightly cooked or cooked veggies.]

I, personally, have a bit of a love affair with spinach. which is so un-original. ;) Also - not only does that dressing look fabulous, but your little tag for it is such a lovely touch. :) Thanks to Nava for the dressing recipe!!

My favorite green has to be kale...especially love it lightly steamed with a little sea salt and sesame seeds! I love Nava Atlas, I follow VegKitchen on FB and now I will follow Urban Vegan on FB too (sorry, I don't twitter). Thanks for running the contest!

It's so hard for me to stop at naming just one favorite green! I have always loved vegetables and anything green. I guess at the moment bok choy is slightly ahead of everything else. I even put it in split pea soup recently! And it regulary goes into smoothies at our house.

My favorite green veggie is kale. Our family discovered it after signing up for a local CSA program...they gave us a bushel of it every week and we needed to learn how to cook it.

Years later, we make tons of amazing, delicious things with kale, all the different kinds, and I reall think that it improves our health. I swear it's the best thing vegans can eat! I always hated that dumb question "How do you get your calcium?" Now I have an easy answer: "Greens--kale and collards!"

I don't know how I could have missed this recipe the first time around, because cucumber + dill = SOLD. My kind of flavors alright! Even more than that though, I love the label you created. It's so beautiful!

PS, if you'd be interested in a review copy of Vegan a la Mode, that could possibly be arranged. Email me you address if so! <3

oh YEAH i forgot to tell you my favorite green vegi... definitely cucumber. i never get sick of them and doubt i ever will, and they're one of the few foods i always buy out of season (bad me!). ~erica in pdx

I love kale ... but often add a handful of arugula to leftovers as part of lunch (it's great "wilted" when lunch is reheated) ... and broccoli has been my go-to winter vegetable for decades. Sometimes, though, I think my favorite green vegetable is the one that's fresh and ready to be picked from the garden or brought home from the farmers' market!